Christianity Is Not Great, Pt. 2

What's So Great about Christianity? by Dinesh D'Souza; Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 2008; 348pp.

Part 1: The Future of Christianity
Ch.1 The Twilight of Atheism: The Global Triumph of Christianity

Dinesh D‘Souza begins his popular apologia by taking a big-picture view of religion and secularism that convinces him it is time to declare that “God has come back to life,” and “Nietzsche is dead“(3).

If true, that is not good for the future if one is secular-minded - the resurrection of God; that is; Nietzsche’s death - that is a benefit to rational secularists. And that should be very much to the dismay of the resurrected God.

Nonetheless, as D’Souza explains in his big-picture view, around the world religion has an active role to play in people’s lives, partly due to the failures of secularism. The “secular thesis” formulated in the early 20th century held that reason, science, progress, and modernization will lead to a more secular West and entire world. Secularization, however, is failing to meet important needs, needs which (supposedly) only religion can fulfill. Secularism is not important to the long-term big picture because its leading of civilization to inevitable progress has been shown to be untrue in many ways, from totalitarian regimes to the inner emptiness felt in people. D’Souza further shows that the future belongs to religion for reasons like religious societies having high birth rates, interest in “traditional religion” is on the rise, religions are spreading to new territory because of globalization, etc.

D’Souza tries to separate the resurgence of religion from the rise in religious militancy. He does this by making a distinction between fundamentalism and militancy. According to some analysts, the growth of religion around the world is largely a growth of religious fundamentalism, but this is an incorrect analysis by D’Souza‘s reading. After pointing out that the term, “fundamentalism,” originally identified certain Protestant groups in America who read the Bible literally, he writes, “[f]undamentalism is a meaningless term outside this context”(4). What is described as an increase in fundamentalism is really an increase in “traditional religion.” He states, “the growth of religious militancy and the growth of religion are very different”(4).

Anyone else notice a glaring omission on D’Souza’s part? He has no explanation why the literal reading of holy texts in other religions is not also “fundamentalism.” That is a perfectly legitimate concept that need not be confined to describing some American Protestants. So, by D’Souza’s definition, Islamic fundamentalists, for instance, do not exist after all…yet they do exist.

D’Souza argues that secularism has been tried and its deficiencies have contributed to a global resurgence of what he calls, “traditional religion,” which he defines as “religion as it has been understood and practiced over the centuries”(5).

This is not a good definition because there is, for the most, part, no monolithic way that religions has been practiced over the centuries. Some religions standstill for centuries; many change fairly often, producing offshoots that may or may not last. Nonetheless, D’Souza believes “traditional religions” - whatever that means - are growing and are going to significantly shape this century.

The convergence of religion and secularism is being best handled by oriental peoples. D’Souza seems to approve of how Asians want “Western” prosperity and technology and to also retain their traditional religions and way of life. Their slogan is “modernization without Westernization”(8).

That may be the goal of many in Asia but it is not that simple.

Prosperity and technology are not products of other-worldly mysticism and tribal tradition. Prosperity and technology are possible to minds that are reality-oriented and rational, meaning, fundamentally secular. In the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe we find two precedents of this phenomena of countries wanting to have Western-like prosperity and technology without changing their other-worldly and tribal mindsets, deliberately rejecting in philosophical terms reason and the mind’s adherence to reality. Those countries were Germany and Russia, the two countries that supposedly embodied the worst of secularism. Asian countries along with any sympathizers in the West who call for “modernization without Westernization” would do well to learn from the examples of Germany and Russia. But that is a subject to visit later.

“Western” is a type of culture and society, one significant aspect of it is its grounding in reality-oriented, rational thinking. That can and should be a trait of any and all cultures. Prosperity as such is not merely a cultural trait, nor is technology, like some tradition is. Prosperity and technology are the effects of deeper causes. This is a point that seems to be lost on D’Souza as much as it was lost on the Germans and Russians back then - and I do not know if it is lost on any of the Asians now. If Asians want modernization without Westernization, that is fine as long as they understand and are ready to commit themselves to being rational and reality-oriented, regardless of how that conflicts with and undermines their inherited traditions and religions - that is modernization, period. That is what their slogan actually means, whether they realize it or not. Much of what is “traditional” in a society that has not advanced itself toward a rational orientation to the world is darn well going to be lost to modernization. That is a good thing.

The major mistake D’Souza makes is failing to realize the triumph of religion in this century is no more inevitable than secularism’s triumph or decline. Long-term factors and trends cannot be discounted in predicting the future, but there is an equally important variable factor to understand as well: the human mind. Men can choose to think and live either religiously or secularly because men have free will. If men choose to abandon living by their minds, they doom themselves to the living death of religion. If they choose to live by reason they will be secular and progress will be inevitable - as long as the choice to be rational and worldly is committed to. Lack of that commitment to reason has been the problem of Western secularism.

Actually, if D’Souza’s projection of the future is right it makes the case for the importance of another Enlightenment - a new Enlightenment that learns from the first one’s mistakes - before human civilization is again swallowed up by that great obstructer of life and progress: religion; like it was in the world before the Enlightenment. Those who do not learn from history…

Next post: Ch. 2 Survival of the Sacred: Why Religion Is Winning
Christianity Is Not Great, Pt. 1

An Atheist Challenge to Theists

Long ago, Dionysius of Halicarnassus said “history is philosophy teaching by examples.” So what are some important lessons for us to learn?

In the 21st century we can look back on man’s history and how he thought and lived; how he has used his mind and to what ends. We can study the history of man’s mind to find out what ways of thinking and what systems of ideas cause what kinds of effects for man’s life on this earth.

Historically, we can identify essential societal and political essentials for man’s flourishing, like individual political freedom, material and economic prosperity, growing scientific and general knowledge, peace, freedom, and progress. They are necessarily good for man. Can they be caused by any type of mentality with any type of world-view? - and not just some of those components, but all? For human life to be at its best those are its requirements.

Religion has had more than enough time and chances to prove how wonderful and good it claims itself to be for our lives. It has, instead, time and again proved how false and destructive it is - and we, today, have not learned that.

How come all the countless predominantly religious societies, cultures, civilizations lack individual political freedom, material and economic prosperity, growing scientific and general knowledge, peace, freedom, and progress? Predominantly religious civilizations are characterized by backwardness, poverty, ignorance, superstition, collectivism, dictatorship, war - the exact opposite of what the nature of man’s life on earth requires; or, exactly what destroys man's life. Religion is competent at perpetuating - for millennia - those destroyers of man’s life.

If theists have been, for millennia and the world over, living according to what God wants them to do and be, why were all their civilizations disasters unsuitable to man's existence?

The major historical periods that have brought those necessary essentials for man’s life and progress held in common one common characteristic: they were based on independent, reality-oriented, rational minds. These historical periods were of classical Greece, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Each period was brief in the overall course of history, lasting a few centuries at most, and yet these brief time frames brought about rapid growth in knowledge of the world and of man himself. Indeed, the concept "progress" as we understand it did not even exist until the height of the 18th century Enlightenment. Before then under all the centuries of rule by Christianity there was no way for man to form the concept of "progress."

Sudden, dramatic leaps forward in knowledge, of opening new areas of knowledge, and of making progress by applying that knowledge are the historical exception to man’s stagnating under religion (and its usual corollaries: tribalism or collectivism). To the extent he frees himself from religion and thinks for himself, these exceptional periods show how much potential man has.

Theists have a vision of their religious utopia on earth that, at least, does not much tolerate ideas and ways of infidels, secularists, and atheists to have any influence. Yet, with so much history behind us, based on what historical examples do theists think they can have their religious utopia on earth and simultaneously have the necessary essentials of a proper human civilization: individual political freedom, material and economic prosperity, growing scientific and general knowledge, peace, freedom, progress? Where and when has faith, theocracy, dogma, created a society that was not a disaster, but a wonderful place for humans to live in, a religious paradise?

Show us.

I say you cannot because the religious mentality and philosophy are destructive because they are contrary to what man’s life on earth requires. (Disaster likewise results even when your religious ideas are secularized as 20th century socialism and communism demonstrated. For elaboration see this post.) Historical examples are settled and done, detached from current controversies so I challenge theists to answer these questions:

1.When has religion proved science to be wrong?

2.When has science’s conformity to religious dogmas regarding nature and man caused science to be fruitful and forward-moving?

3.When has faith caused a growing body of knowledge?

4.When has a country’s consistent and total adherence to and enforcement of religious dogma caused peace domestically? Internationally?

5.When has obedience to religious commands, rules, and practices caused material and economic prosperity?

6.When has a totally religious society been moral?

7.When has theocracy been compatible with liberty?

8.When have - assuming they could be answered positively - nos.1-7 existed together at one time in one society/country/civilization?

If theism is true then the proof must be in its results - likewise if it is false. Considering theism’s millennia-long domination of societies and civilizations, assessing it for its truth or falsity is sensible because so much - indeed, everything - is at stake. If theism can make for a proper and successful life on earth for man, then so be it. Then theist arguments have at least that much merit and are to be seriously considered.

This atheist thinks it is time for theists to prove - a reasonable, minimal expectation in the 21st century - that their vision of a society dominated by God and religion is an objectively good option for us. If not, then it is time for them to quietly go away once and for all, letting the rest of us pursue learning how to make the best of living on earth and achieving it.

Prager Smears Secularism

Dennis Prager’s column, If There Is No God, lists fourteen supposedly harmful consequences following from atheism and secularism. Here is one:
7. Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism....Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm.

Prager’s motto is “clarity over agreement” - but one would not know that based on this column. Just that excerpt has so much so wrong that needs clarification. Undoing Prager’s mischaracterizations requires expending a substantial amount of electronic ink which is why this post is on only the above paragraph. The same can be said for the rest of his column as well (which Armchair Intellectual philosophically rebutted in four parts).

Right off the bat, Prager's first sentence is simply untrue: "Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational."

Westerners have not been made more rational by religion. When Christianity ascended in the late Roman Empire it was openly hostile to reason. Many Church Fathers stamped out Greek philosophy and science, i.e. reason, and succeeded so well the “Dark Ages” is the name of the period they had created after Rome fell to the barbarians. Christian Europe was hardly rational. Philosophy, which relies on the use of reason, was the mere handmaid to Christian theology. This was the land of belief in an earth-centered, three-tiered universe, astrology, numerology, magic, witchcraft, alchemy, recurring end-times hysteria, and countless other superstitions. The non-rational definitely expressed itself to the detriment of society. People in the West embraced faith, turned a blind eye toward reason, and for centuries there was scant progress in any area of human endeavor. Discovery of the ancient Greek texts that contained reason, philosophy, and worldly knowledge saved Europe from the darkness of Christian theology, mysticism, superstition, and dogmas. The subsequent Renaissance and Enlightenment broke Christianity’s monopoly on men’s minds, opening the way to the modern secular world. What period in the West’s history Prager is referring to is beyond me.

His second sentence is more truthful by itself: "It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism." It is not fully true because there were Marxist theists (i.e. Liberation Theology). In the context of his column's argument, however, Prager is evading an important fact, one that helps in refuting it.

I will provide it - for the sake of clarity, Mr. Prager.

Prager neglects to tell his readers just who many of those secular irrationalists were and more important, where Marxism came from. He failed to explain how Marxism is modeled to a large extent on Judeo-Christian religion. (Prager is himself a Jew and an intellectual, so one would reasonably expect hm to know of the Judeo-Christian influence on Marxism.)

In his Philosophy of Religion (third ed.), John Hicks writes: "Jews mean by 'the Messiah' a nondivine being who will restore Israel as an earthly community and usher in the consummation of history" (109). If we merely change a few nouns in that sentence we get Marxism: "Marxists mean by 'the proletariat' an economic class that will restore mankind to a "fully human" community and usher in the consummation of history." Karl Marx (who was raised Jewish) secularized this important idea in the Jewish world-view, the messiah myth, which was appealing to secular Jews (among others, of course). It is the common denominator of Judaism and Marxism.

Furthermore, Marxism's history has no shortage of prominent Jews, from leaders of communist parties and organizations to intellectuals. Actually, according to J.L. Talmon in Political Messianism - The Romantic Phase, "Jews have played a prominent and conspicous part in extreme radical and revolutionary movements in modern times" that began with the philosophy of a socialist predecessor of Marx, Saint-Simon (77). Talmon further writes, "In the case of spiritual and idealistic sublimation, the age long Jewish tradition of solidarity and of imaginative compassion with the sufferings of others was able to find a kindred disposition in socialism, and Jews threw themselves into its arms enthusiastically and lovingly" (81). Secularized Jewish irrationalism began with Saint-Simonianism, and Marx's ideas fueled it even more.

In that context does Prager's claim, "it was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism," still stand? If Prager clarified that the irrationalism he refers to is that of secularized religion, he would not have a false straw-man of "secular irrationalism" to knock down in his case against secularism.

So for clarity's sake, Mr. Prager, you should distinguish between secularism and secularized religion.

On to Prager's last sentence: "Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm."

If irrational beliefs are confined to religion, religion is not confined to itself - it is indeed applied to society with immense harm. Examples are many and for all to see.

The irrationality of subjectivism is assumed by Prager to be innate and not to be examined, questioned, or purged from the mind. It is accepted as a law of nature that man has an irrational side needing expression. Besides the implication it has that a man's thinking cannot by nature be wholly objective, this is also the basis in man's nature of man's belief in God, the Kantian-like premise that we may not be able to prove there is a God, but man's belief in God is inherent in his nature - so he would do well to assume that a God created him with this belief in Him.

Prager gives us a choice: we naturally have an irrational side, so we either channel it to society - which is harmful, or channel it to harmless religious beliefs! That’s it, pick one or the other!

And why - for clarity's sake, Mr. Prager - is it not possible for rational beliefs to be formed regarding society; that it is not possible for man to use his mind's method of knowing reality - his reason - to live with his fellow men?

Ultimately, what is intellectually and morally scandalous - and Prager's column is just another instance of it - is that religionists continually use atheism and secularism as such as scapegoats for the harm (pseudo)secular ideas like Marxism do, ideas that would not be, were it not for theology in the first place.

Communism Was Not Secularism

Secularism's future will likely consist of a long intellectual and cultural battle until it wins the day at last. One major intellectual battle waiting to be fought is for the real secularists to repair the bad reputation their cause has. We are told how the 20th century was one of secularism that inevitably led to totalitarianism, warfare, gulags, genocide, and pogroms. Much of the bad reputation derives therefrom. Blaming secularism for those horrors is misplacing the blame, though. Anti-secularists fail to see under the surface of allegedly “secular” totalitarianism. Beneath that surface is religion. From this review of "Comrades" by Robert Service:
"But Hitchens makes the excellent point that Stalin was able to, indeed set out to, exploit the massive reservoir of credulity created by centuries of tsarist rule and sullen acquiescence to the Russian Orthodox Church, when he says: "Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it."

British historian Robert Service, in Comrades: a world history of communism, goes further. For Service, communism is a religion, a "secular credo" complete with millenarian overtones (apocalypse followed by paradise), an emphasis on scriptural exegesis (each communist party "was a synod of hair-splitting political discussion") and a theory of historical inevitability that looks suspiciously like a doctrine of predestination. Marx and Engels, Service suggests, enthusiastically encouraged devotion, with the consequence that they were "treated as prophets whose every word had to be treasured".

They were "infallible progenitors of an omniscient world view" and "remained unconsciously influenced by religious ideas about the perfect future society and the salvation of humanity".

To suggest that communism is religious in character is not an original point but it is a hugely important one, for it gives the lie to the view that communism, for all its attendant evils and failures, was essentially a rational experiment that the human race was bound to make - that it grew out of the Enlightenment, as opposed to fascism and Nazism, both of which were deeply irrational."

Hitchens is correct as far as he goes about the Russians' credulity; credulity that is found in any backwards, predominantly religious country. Under the tsars and Orthodox Church, Moscow was asserted to be the "Third Rome" and "Holy Russia's" destiny was nothing less than redeeming mankind. That was the self-image of a country where most people lived under the harsh, impoverished, quasi-communistic system of serfdom until well into the nineteenth century.

Meanwhile, Western Europe progressed quickly with its Renaissance, scientific revolution, and Enlightenment, none of which substantially penetrated Russia - Russian intellectuals were against Western thought.

Looking back at the big-picture, it is therefore bizarre that Karl Marx believed Russia would be among the last nations to become communist - there must be fully industrialized capitalism before there is communism, he believed. (Later on Russian communists got Marx to make an official doctrinal exception for their country.)

Communism took its deepest roots where religion was especially strong: countries like Russia (as well as other eastern European countries).

Some communist countries, especially Russia, went headlong toward massive-scale modernizing and industrializing; modernizing and industrializing they did not learn first-hand how to create but rather begged, copied, and stole from those who did learn them first-hand. These were countries that were historically dominated by religious and tribal beliefs of mysticism, millenariaism, self-sacrifice, collectivism, conformity, and authoritarianism. They were impoverished, backwards, and stagnant. They did not grow themselves into an intellectual and cultural period of reason and science, such as western Europe's scientific revolution and Enlightenment, which led to rational, scientific, independent-minds; increasing knowledge of man and the world; progress; and liberty. In comparison, and not so incidentally, those countries that originated and/or were most influenced by the secularism of scientific revolution and Enlightenment (e.g., Great Britian, France, Holland, America) were much less vulnerable to the influence and spread of communism.

The Russian people were living for centuries under religious-induced collectivism, mysticism, ignorance, authoritarianism, and millenarian expectations, and suddenly had their religion taken away and replaced with Marxist-Leninist communism. What was not taken away, however, were those ideas and mindsets that were integral to their religion. Only those ideas' contents and contexts were changed from religious to secular. No more was Holy Russia going to redeem mankind and messianically usher in the millennium of a reign of heaven on earth. Instead, the proletariat was the messianic force that would overthrow the existing order and usher in a workers' paradise. And more: with that substitution these people obtained possession of the products of reason and science without being rational and scientific. They kept their collective, messianic mission of transforming the world, a religious, pre-modern mission they can undertake armed with modern weapons produced by modern industry. That backwards people with a strong tradition of religious superstition would go about executing their "mission" by grabbing absolute power and committing wholesale bloodshed should not be surprising. As 20th century communism's history demonstrated, the Marxist methodology of "dialectical materialist" thinking and its alleged ability to create a "scientific" socialism were as delusional and as destructive as relying on religious mystical revelation or theology as a method for creating a society.

How is secularism to blame for the horrors of communism, and religion is not only off the hook, but touted as the antidote?

That is why secular offshoots of religion should be opposed and distinguished from real secularism. Understanding what is good for human life on this earth and what that requires necessarily means using reason as the means to that end; resorting to mysticism as a method of knowing precludes any characterization of that endeavor as "secular." It becomes religious. Likewise does introducing into secularism's inquiry a concept, or ideas that cannot be derived from rationally understanding the world, like the idea of, say, "messianism." It comes from religion. That idea, however, even if given secular content or context remains a religious idea.

Robert Service's analysis of Marxism is dead-on. Marxist communism was the offspring of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Communism was not essentially secularism. Communism was essentially secularized religion.

Atheism and secularism were part of Marxist communism as a means of applying to society and government what otherwise were religious ideas. Religious ideas divorced from their supernaturalism cannot be made to work in this world any more than if they retained their supernaturalism. That is the lesson to be learned from the bloody "experiment" of communism.

Secularism will make significant headway when it distinguishes itself from and successfully opposes secularized religious ideas. The religious have used their own secularized offshoots, like communism, to justify denouncing secularism as a failure. We should not be tolerating this.

HT to Daily Atheist for the above review.